Updated XP/Vista Release

As promised, here are SSE2, SSE3, and SSE4.1 builds of Thorium for Windows XP/Vista.

SSE2 builds are not provided for x64, since it doesn't make sense. Every x64 CPU except the very first x64 CPU (The original 1st Gen AMD Opteron from 2003) has SSE3. GCC, Clang, MSVC, Rust, and Chromium all default to SSE3 for x64 targets. Unless you are an exceptionally unique person who is part of the small subset of the population using this software, and an even smaller subset of that population that just so happens to have a server from 2003 with an AMD motherboard, this will be fine. If there is someone out there that actually has this CPU, well, if you file an issue I'll make a special release for you. I cant guarantee that it would even work though, since noone tests compilers or programs for x64 on SSE2.

SSE4.2 is not used as the performance increase is not detectable in my testing, and would exclude alot of people with Core 2 Duos from running it. Fixes #71

There have been some additions and fixes since the last release, both from myself and from Supermium's repo. These include:

• Installer/Uninstaller .cmd files now use %PROGRAMFILES% instead of hardcoding it to C:\Program Files, for people whos Windows installation is on a drive letter other than "C:\". NOTE: For proper registry entries, you will have to edit the .reg files and use "find and replace" to change instances of C:\ to whatever drive letter yours is. I'm looking into somehow making this something the user doesn't have to manually do. If I can come up with a fix, I will send a PR to Supermium, since this is also an issue with his GUI installer. Partially fixes #75
• Removed --disable-encryption from the portable .bats, since not everyone wants that and was breaking stuff for some people.
• PDF rendering in --single-process mode is fixed. See Here
• Update to .169 minor Chromium revision. See Diff
• GDI text rendering alignment is fixed This bug caused text to be askew, either too high or too low, or too much to the left. The reason previous releases didn't have this fixed, is that win32ss fixed it in Skia, which is a third_party submodule of Chromium. Because of that, I couldn't see the commits or changes. He shared a patch with me, and I have now created a repo specifically for it, and we will probably use that as a submodule in both here and in the Supermium repo. See the pull request I made for this after we discussed it > win32ss/supermium#511 Fixes #69
• The classic-omnibox-border flag is mostly complete, after I filed a pull request with Supermium, and then he modified the color to be the authentic grey color (instead of black). See the PR and his commit. Another cool note is that the PR also adds some of Thorium's compiler optimizations to Supermium! He will probably make further changes to the styling to make it even more authentic too. Enable chrome://flags#custom-tab-shapes, chrome://flags#classic-omnibox, chrome://flags#classic-omnibox-border, and chrome://flags#native-ui-style for an almost-authentic classic Chromium style!
• WebGPU now works on Vista+ (Requires a GPU with DirectX 11 support).
• Policy templates naming is correct now. Fixes #78
• New chrome://flags flag: chrome://flags#enable-webbloat-mitigation. Enabling this will cause Thorium to refuse to load Image, Video, or <canvas> HTML Elements that are over 8,000x8,000 pixels in size. The rationale for this is that really large assets cause Chromium to allocate hundreds of megabytes of memory, sometimes 250Mb or more. This could cause out of memory issues on XP-era machines with limited RAM. NOTE: This is different than Supermium's implementation. In Supermium, this is enabled by default, and the flag is disable-webbloat-mitigation to disable it. In Thorium, it is off by default (not changing anything from the normal Chromium behaviour), but setting the flag enables it. I did this because I thought that the majority of users will be on machines with enough RAM (2GB+) to accommodate large web assets like these, and I didn't want a huge influx of GitHub issues like "why is this and that or so and so not loading?". If you have 2GB or less, you can enable this flag. Note that if it is a <canvas> element, it will actually cause the tab to crash, rather than just not loading it. IDK if there is a fix for this.
• The setup.sh and patch.sh scripts have been separated out into ones for Win7+ and ones for XP+, due to differing patches and differing files between the two, and I didn't want the original scripts to get huge and hard to read due to all the lines of bash. NOTE: If you are building Thorium-Legacy for yourself and are using these scripts, you will need my MSVS artifacts archive with progwrp.lib and progwrp.dll integrated to get a working build. See > https://github.com/Alex313031/Snippets/releases/tag/10.1.22621.3235

NOTE: I noticed that the mini_installer on Vista would copy the files, but not make the shortcuts. Until I can resolve this, the XP and Vista builds will be the same, provided as a .zip with an installer .cmd file inside. It works fine on both OSes.

Final M122 XP/Vista/7 Release!

M122 V3     

Final M122 release, including stable builds for Windows XP and Vista!

All the fixes of the previous .158 release plus:

• Proxy settings should now work on all OSes.
• The "save file as" dialog box on Win XP should handle file extensions properly now.
• Three new flags: chrome://flags#rectangular-tabs to make tabs rectangular, chrome://flags#classic-omnibox-border which, when paired with the classic-omnibox flag, will show an (in progress, not very pretty right now) dark border around the omnibox, and chrome://flags#native-ui-style which will use native Windows UI elements on things outside the content frame, for example menus and scrollbars. The elements used and their appearance are dependent on the Windows version you are on.
• New XP themed easter egg
• Build script fixes
• Fixed XP/Vista related launching bugs
• Minor Chromium uprev to .168. See comparison.
• Installers for XP/Vista! (Read below)

IMPORTANT: There are alot of files here, read this in its entirety or you might be confused.

The "Thorium_SSE2...." through "Thorium_AVX2..." and "Thorium_WIN32_SSE2..." & "Thorium_WIN32_SSE3..." .exe and .zip files are your standard, normal Windows 7/8/8.1 installers and portable .zips.

The "thorium_VISTA_mini_installer_x32.exe" is an installer for 32 Bit Vista ONLY.
The "thorium_VISTA_mini_installer_x64.exe" is an installer for 64 Bit Vista ONLY.
BOTH of these installers require that progwrp.dll is present alongside the installer. So, download the "progwrp_32" or "progwrp_64" .zips as well, then unzip them, and copy the .dll to wherever the mini_installer is. Run the mini installer just like you would on Windows 7+, and well, there you go.

The "Thorium_122.0.6261.168_WINXP_x32.zip" and "Thorium_122.0.6261.168_WINXP_x64.zip" are for Windows XP/Server 2003 32 Bit and 64 Bit, respectively.

The mini_installer code does not work on XP, sooo:
These are different from the rest. Inside you will find a THORIUM_PORTABLE.bat, for portable usage, however, there are also INSTALL_THORIUM.cmd, REMOVE_THORIUM.cmd command shell files, and some .reg registry files. Read the README.txt inside for info about everything. However, if you don't care and just want Thorium installed quickly, then unpacking the .zip and double clicking the INSTALL_THORIUM.cmd will copy Thorium to C:\Program Files\Thorium, create shortcuts on the Desktop and Start Menu, and write registry entries registering Thorium as a known browser and file handler for .html, .xml, .link, etc. files. This will allow you to set Thorium as your default browser if you wish through the "Set Program Access and Defaults" item in the Start Menu. This also lets you see/edit the contents of the installer, so you know exactly what it's doing and can remove stuff you don't want.

The "thorium_policy_templates.zip" is same as last time, for enterprise policy or seeing all the available registry settings pertaining to Thorium. Note that a few of these won't be applicable to XP due to group policy changes between NT 5.x and NT 6.x.

The "NotoEmoji-Regular_win7.zip" is for installing the Emoji fonts ON WINDOWS 7 ONLY.

The "NotoEmoji-Regular_winXP.zip" is for installing the Emoji fonts ON WINDOWS XP & VISTA ONLY.
As per the release notes in the previous release, mixing these two up on the wrong OS will lead to breakage.

*whew* got that over with lol. Anyway, I was watching The Incredibles recently, so to end things on a light note, when I first saw Thorium launch on my Core 2 Duo Windows XP desktop, I was like:

I also made an XP themed webpage similar to my existing win7 one, with useful download links. > https://thorium.rocks/xp/
It has a link to a repo that I've had up for quite a while now, but just recently added a bunch of stuff to it. It is a smorgasbord of XP related updates, files, docs, and programs. > https://github.com/Alex313031/Windows-XP-Stuffz

UPDATE: Per user request, I will be making SSE2, SSE3, and SSE4.1 builds of both the 32 bit and 64 bit XP/Vista releases. AVX/AVX2 support was only added in Service Pack 1 for Win7. Windows 7 RTM and earlier do not support AVX. SSE4.2 also doesn't produce a noticeable difference in performance, and excludes many CPUs from running it, such as Core 2 Duo and many Celerons, so I won't be making an SSE4.2 build (and this applies to all Thorium releases in all repos for all OSes. Too much work for no benefit). Fixes #71

BETA WINDOWS XP BUILD!!!!!

Thorium M122 for Windows XP/Vista

At long last folks, previously only a possibility in legacy OS enthusiast's dreams, wishing they could browse properly on the modern web with all their *certified Y2K cool kid ™* Windows XP and Vista machines, I present to you: Thorium for Windows XP!!!

This is the fastest, most up to date browser for Windows XP in existence (as of yet lol).

• Only 32 Bit build is provided (for now).

• No installer (yet).
  To "install" it, unzip and copy it to C:\Program Files, make a shortcut to thorium.exe and put the shortcut i.e. in your Start menu or desktop. During the first run, the correct registry entries will be made.

• It will work on Windows XP SP1 (At a minimum, of course SP3 + all updates is recommended for stable operation), and Windows Vista SP2. Will not work on Windows XP RTM or Vista RTM, and media features won't work correctly on Vista SP1.

• 1 Core @1.0 Ghz. & 512Mb RAM minimum, 2+ Cores @2.0+ Ghz. & 1Gb+ RAM recommended. Also, the faster your HDD, and the more defragmented it is, the faster it will load. Not recommended to install XP on an SSD due to it lacking the TRIM feature within the NT kernel and scsi_miniport.sys

The NotoEmoji-Regular_winXP.zip is ONLY COMPATIBLE WITH XP/VISTA. Do NOT install this font on a Windows 7/8/8.1 machine, and Do NOT install the one from the previous release, which is only for Win7/8/8.1, on a Win XP/Vista machine. Future releases will have "_xp" or "_7" at the end of the .zip's name, with a README.txt inside the .zip describing proper usage, installation, etc.

The reason for the above is that the latest Noto-Emoji fonts are needed for displaying Emojis the web, but the .ttf (True Type Font) downloads that Google provides are only compatible with Win 7 and above. The ones for XP have some metadata removed, and sizes changed. Installing the wrong one on the wrong OS will lead to breakage, and will make it impossible to uninstall via normal means, you would have to do a manual font uninstall via deleting files and registry entries. Not the end of the world, but very annoying. Any bugs filed about this will be ignored because you have been warned lol.

Of course thanks to @win32ss for making the original patchset for Win7 that this is based off of, and for his work making progwrp.dll, without which, bringing XP support to Thorium would not have been possible. Again, think about donating to him (and/or me lol), for the development time/work.

> Also you might want to read the README inside the new progwrp directory in this repo, for a little more info about how it works and support. > https://github.com/Alex313031/thorium-win7/tree/main/patches/progwrp#readme

Next release will have the normal Windows 7 builds (built without progwrp.dll at all) + SSE2 and SSE3 releases for both 32 bit and 64 bit XP/Vista. No promises on making a fancy GUI installer like Supermium, I might make a .bat file to do everything for you instead (which also lets you see everything being done, and edit it as you wish).

M122.0.6261.158 - Updated M122 release

M122 V2

• Fixed TaskBar pinning on new install (desktop shortcut has always worked, including with --system-level installs)
• Enabled WebSQL by default (for things like Session Buddy 3)
• More compiler optimizations (well, actually the removal of some LLVM flags) > 1f0c685
• Minor spacing and spelling fixes on some chrome:// pages that Thorium modifies. > 1e41e8c
• Minor version uprev to .158, which includes security and stability fixes from M123, including a new version of V8. > comparison
• Added Policy Templates for people wanting to set enterprise policies, or simply to see the available Windows Registry keys to control certain behaviors. These are identical to the ones for Chromium, except the directory names and registry key names have been changed to "Thorium" so that you don't have to do that yourself. They are in the thorium_policy_templates.zip file.
• Added preliminary code for Windows XP/Vista support, but I still need progwrp.lib from @win32ss , which should be coming soon when he releases Supermium M123 💯
• Added a Memorial easter egg dedicated to my Grandmother "Gramma Linda", who I spent the last week in the hospital with, and she sadly died March 23, 2024 at the age of 83. 😭 Born on Dec. 27th, 1940. You can view the easter egg by running Thorium from the cmdline with --enable-logging --v=1 >> C:\place\where\you\want\debug.log. The top of the logfile will print the Thorium brand name and version, and under that is my little memorial code. > 9c63367
• Added 5 patches from Supermium, which are supposed to help with crashes on Win7 RTM, and tweaks the tabstrip a little. > 32f338e
• The flag I added chrome://flags#allow-insecure-downloads should now bother you even less about "dangerous downloads", when enabled. It is best to use this in conjunction with the Supermium flag chrome://flags#disable-download-upload
• "Ungoogled Thorium" flag, which really just acts as a toggle to enable some of the Ungoogled patches all at once.
• The NTP page was broken when using a search engine other than Google, including the extra ones I added to some locales. I fixed it upstream and also here. > 175416f
• Added new flag chrome://flags#classic-omnibox . When used alongside the chrome://flags#custom-tab-shapes flag, this gives Thorium a very nice classic Chromium appearance, similar to versions before M72. This was based on this commit in Supermium, however he disabled rounded corners in the omnibox entirely, whereas M71 has a 3px radius. So I adjusted it to that, to make it more authentic looking. I will probably file a pull request in the Supermium repo about this.
• Fixed the disable-encryption cmdline flag not working properly (for users of the portable .zips) here.
• Updated libhighway in the libjxl repo to 1.1.0 > Alex313031/thorium-libjxl@1a4d1e7

NOTE: The NotoEmoji-Regular.ttf.zip is only for users who didn't install the font with the last release, or who haven't installed it as part of the Supermium installation process. See the bottom of the previous M122 release notes for info on how to install the font in Control Panel. It is needed for proper emoji support on the web.

NOTE 2: M122 seems to have a possible Handle leak > #64 which is almost certainly related to this upstream bug. Thorium doesn't leak as bad as Supermium, because there are two causes of the leaks, one being progwrp.dll, which these builds don't use. For Thorium-Win7, it shows up if you leave Thorium open for a long period of time. See > win32ss/supermium#372 (comment)

M122.0.6261.132 Final Release

M122 build of Thorium for Windows7/8/8.1!

Doesn't work on XP/Vista, as I need progwrp.lib for that (soon to be released)

Read below:
NOTE: For the release notes of things that have changed in Thorium 121 and 122, see Here (121) and Here (122). The changes/patches of M120 were backported to the previous M119 Win7 releases, so y'all are already up to date on that.

• Finally fixed the 32 bit builds sometimes having tab crashes on javascript-heavy pages with STATUS_ACCESS_VIOLATION or STATUS_BREAKPOINT 5582e51

• NotoEmoji-Regular.ttf.zip can be unzipped, and dragged into the Fonts window after going to Control Panel > Fonts for better Emoji font support. If you already installed the Noto stuff from Supermium, you shouldn't install this on top of it.

M122 BETA Release

• This is a build of Thorium 122.0.6261.132 based on Supermium 122.0.6261.85

• It's not completely finished, I still need to work out some kinks, and some of the chrome://flags flags don't work properly (although the thorium specific ones should)

• AVX only, installer .exe only for now, as I'm not going to invest the time and building resources to make all the builds I usually do, just to have them be replaced soon by the final release

• Please report any bugs

• This release will run on Windows Vista with Extended Kernel (also made by @win32ss). The final release may or may not run on vanilla Windows Vista, depending on if I can get it to link properly with PSAPI=1 (Win 2000/XP/Vista use ver. 1 of this set of Windows functions, 7 and above use ver. 2). Learn more here > https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/psapi/psapi-functions

NOTE: For the release notes of things that have changed in Thorium 121 and 122, see Here (121) and Here (122). The changes/patches of M120 were backported to the previous M119 Win7 releases, so y'all are already up to date on that.

32 Bit M119 Releases - M119.0.6045.214

• Fixed the 32 bit builds
• Same release notes as the previous release

SSE2 & SSE3 builds are provided.

NOTE: My Pentium 4 system is out of commission 😢 So can someone with a CPU that is not capable of SSE3 try the SSE2 version and report back to me to make sure it works.

FINAL M119 RELEASE! - M119.0.6045.214

M119

• At long last my fine sirs and madams, Thorium is alive again on Windows 7, 8, and 8.1!

    *defects Victor Frankenstein voice*   "It's aliiiiveee.....It's aliiiiivvee!!" > Thorium_119_Win7.jpg

• Please see the release notes of M117 and M119, they also apply to this release. Otherwise, the patches in Thorium 110 - 116 were all backported to the M109 releases, so y'all are already caught up on that. > https://github.com/Alex313031/thorium/releases/tag/M117.0.5938.157 & https://github.com/Alex313031/thorium/releases/tag/M119.0.6045.214

• SSE3, SSE4, AVX, and AVX2 builds are provided. Unless you have a Pentium 4 or Pentium D, if your CPU lacks AVX, you should almost certainly use the SSE4 version. I found it works particularly well on Core 2 Duo systems. (Note that some of the 1st batches of Core 2 Duo, codename "Conroe", lack SSE4, so for those, use the SSE3 release).

NO 32 bit builds yet, I'm sorry. Me and Supermium are having issues with the 32 bit builds crashing on launch. If you need 32 bit support, please use the last Thorium M109 or Supermium 119 32-bit release. Me, @win32ss, and @gz83 are working on it.

• It now works on Windows 7 RTM (no SP1 needed), however, it will not run on Windows Vista without the Extended Kernel. See > #3 (comment)

Lastly, thanks to my Patreon supporters, and especially @win32ss. He is a very talented Windows developer (whereas my experience lies more in Linux/Unix). He made the Windows Vista Extended Kernel, and is the main author of Supermium. A moderately modified version of his latest patch was used as a base to start on when making Thorium-Win7.

• I also made a more heavily modified version of the patch which can be used to make a vanilla Chromium 119 release for Win7. > win7-8-8.1-support_chromium.patch

---

UPDATE: Upgrading from M109 to this release will break your saved passwords turning them into jumbled characters, you will have to clear them, and re-login to your sites. There is no way around this. It is due to (good) changes in how Chromium encrypts your passwords. On a positive note, after you log into your sites again, your passwords will be more strongly encrypted! Please see > #38 (comment)
UPDATE 2: I fixed the 32 bit builds! It was a stupid mistake on my part. Please see > win32ss/supermium#150 (comment) I will be building the 32-bit builds shortly.

BETA M119 Thorium Release

• THIS IS NOT THE FINAL M119 RELEASE
• It has a few UI inconsistencies, but otherwise, it has all of Thorium's patches
• It is pretty stable (It only failed one of Chromium's integration tests) and I was using it all day yesterday with no issues.
• You MUST have Service Pack 1 installed if using it on Windows 7.
• It does NOT support Windows 7 RTM, or any version of Vista (unlike Supermium). If you want to run Chromium on Vista, please use Supermium instead as I will never target Vista as my minimum baseline.
• On Windows 11, --no-sandbox is needed (not of concern for us but IDK maybe someone out there will run it on win11)

Beta Chromium + Thorium Optimizations M119 Build

OK, I have a beta build that I want ya'll to test.
I took the supermium patch, removed the supermium branding and a few flags, as well as removed the recently added windows xp compatibility code (because it doesn't work yet, isn't ready for prime time, and causes a compiler warning on windows 7). I then added Thorium's patches that have to do with compiler optimizations and speed (but none of the others).

Essentially it is a compiler optimized vanilla build of Chromium with a few flags (including the directx vs GDI flag, so that you can test that). Please report any weird behavior or crashes.

Note that it is AVX, so if your CPU doesn't have AVX, sorry but you're out of luck until I make the full Thorium release. BUTTT, fear not, as that will come very soon (next couple of days).

Thanks to my three patrons for donating, I used the money to get a much better CPU cooler, which let me overclock my Ryzen 3800XT to 4.4Ghz all cores, shaving a few minutes off of build time (and also just cool that I made a DIY space heater lololol).